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Meir Sternberg on Narratology’s History

As part of a larger effort to think about the shape of small stories, I have begun to try to delineate more carefully the modes of oral discourse — e.g., description, narration, exposition, etc. Apart from the early work by Labov and Waletzky, whose work on narrative versus free clauses is foundational, the work I have found most compelling is that of Meir Sternberg. Re-reading his 1981 essay on “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence” is an exercise in wondering how one mind could anticipate so much of what was to come and what still needs to get done.

I’ll have more to say about Sternberg later, but in the mean time, I found this delightful excerpt from an interview in which he explains the difference, or the lack thereof, between classical and post-classical narratology.

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The Amazing Crawfish Boat is available at your favorite bookseller (both Amazon and B&N). I have also released some additional free materials: audio versions of some of the chapters and photos — all available for download. Details are available on the book’s page.